


Ad libitum

by windandthestars



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: College AU, F/M, First Time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-23 17:27:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14938691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windandthestars/pseuds/windandthestars
Summary: She should’ve known Sloan would hook her up with one of the jocks; she’s slept with or dated a large number of them in the past three years and had shown a particular propensity for the University’s football team. She should’ve known, but even so, there was no way she would’ve guessed she’d end up standing here with Will.





	Ad libitum

**Author's Note:**

> For everyone who wanted sex with actual sex, we're 99% of the way there ;)
> 
> I started this so long ago I can't remember what point I was trying to make about what trope, but it anyone has a trope they'd like to see ~~disregarded~~ destroyed let me know.

“I don’t know. Sloan.” She’s hesitating, literally dragging her feet, but Sloan keeps moving, pushing through the thinning crowd so she keeps following, trailing farther behind. “It’s such an antiquated concept, maybe—”

“That again?” Sloan turns enough to look at her but doesn’t stop. “We’re not here because—”

“Sloan.” She snaps, defensive. She doesn’t need the entire school to know.

“I told him you were a little inexperienced. The overachiever type. I asked him to do me a favor.”

“Great.” Mac stops. “You dated him?”

Sloan grabs her arm, dragging her along with a well-humored look.

“You slept with him?”

“Nope. Just all his friends.” Sloan grins and Mac groans.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Nothing’s— He’s sweet, discreet.” Sloan softens a bit as they stop before a half closed door. “That’s what you wanted. “This isn’t going to be a thing. It’s a fling. You’ll never have to see him again. All right?”

“Yeah, okay.” Mac follows her with a sigh, steps into the room and stops, takes a step back. “Will?”

He turns and it is. It’s him. He’s standing there wearing a look of confusion she knows must match her own.

“Mac.” He smiles, charming, always charming and she presses her eyes shut against Sloan’s cheerful.

“You two know each other?”

She should’ve known Sloan would hook her up with one of the jocks; she’s slept with or dated a large number of them in the past three years and had shown a particular propensity for the University’s football team. She should’ve known, but even so, there was no way she would’ve guessed she’d end up standing here with Will.

“I think I should go.” She says quietly, but Sloan has her hand on her arm, tugging her forward and so she stumbles farther into the room as Will’s expression shifts to one of concern.

“She’s not drunk. Hasn’t been drinking.” Sloan says with a note of amusement. “Nervous Nellie—”

“Oh god.” Mac pleads before looking up just in time to, unfortunately, see everything click into place for Will, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, despite the gentle neutrality he manages to convey.

“So I’ll leave you two here to get acquainted.” Sloan releases her arm and takes a step back toward the door. “I’ll be around downstairs if you need me.”

“Sloan—” she starts to protest, but she’s too slow. Sloan has disappeared and Will, Will’s still standing there.

“You don’t have to stay.” He offers warmly, stepping back to take a seat on the bed as she dithers.

“I don’t know what Sloan told you but—”

“Not a whole lot,” Will’s knowing smile grows brighter and she offers him her own reluctantly. “She said she had a friend who wanted to meet me.”

“That’s not…”

“Odd? It’s Sloan. I’m on the football team. It happens. Normally I say no.”

“But you didn’t this time?”

“She said her friend was a bit of a bookworm.” He offers deliberately and she knows he must have noticed that she’s blushing, flushed hot. “She said you didn’t have expectations.”

“I, I guess not.” She stumbles, still considering, still wondering why she hadn’t turned around and walked out of the door the second she’d realized he was the one standing there, still wondering why she’d even agreed to take Sloan up on her offer in the first place.

“We could talk.” He offers, “for a while, if you want.”

She nods automatically, watching him get up to clear a chair for her, dumping a pile of clothes onto the floor under the desk.

“Is this your room?” She asks, sitting carefully, cautiously looking around.

“It’s Jonesies’. He spends weekends with his girlfriend, if you’re worried.” Will sits back down on the bed and frowns a bit. “I’m embarrassing you.”

“No.” It’s rushed, hurried, the heat in her cheeks bubbling up again. “No, you’re— I’m embarrassing myself.”

“You are?”

She looks at him, glances over, and realizes that he’s genuinely curious, that for once in her life Sloan may have been as discreet as she’d asked her to be.

“I asked Sloan to, and,” she sighs. “I wasn’t expecting—”

“Me.”

“Someone from work.”

That makes him laugh. “I am a piece of work.”

“I didn’t, that wasn’t— I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I know, Mac. I’m sorry. I’ve just, I’ve never seen you this serious.”

“I’m always serious.”

“You’re always focused. You’re usually smiling.”

“I’m— I am?” She asks before she realizes maybe she shouldn’t.

He shrugs. “Ten weeks and I’m still as dense as a brick, but you haven’t gotten frustrated. The last tutor I had wanted to strangle me after the second week.”

“I,” she wasn’t his tutor, not in the traditional sense. She was helping him with his independent study, fitting it in around the demands of the team: the games and the practices. She was helping him, but he was doing all the work and doing it well. “You’re doing fine.”

“I know. In no small part thanks to you.” He says seeming to know it’ll make her blush and blush she does, but this time in pleasure.

“It’s a good job. I don’t mind.”

He smiles again and she stops, lets herself relax a little. She doesn’t know much about him, they hadn’t talked about much other than what was dictated by his course of study, but she know a few things, knows enough to know she didn’t need to keep talking, keep justifying things.

“Sloan mentioned you like running.” 

She likes that he wants her to talk about herself, that he seems genuinely interested in whatever she’s about to say. She appreciates that he hadn’t asked her something more open-ended, but even so she isn’t sure what to say and she’s finding it unbearable. She hasn’t fumbled for words like this since Brandon Reynolds had asked her to the eighth grade dance. “Yeah, I, I try a couple of times a week to, I wouldn’t get much exercise otherwise.”

“Have you tried the trail down by the lake?”

“I usually run at the gym.” She offers hopefully, “or on the track. I’m a bit too clumsy for trail running.”

“Take a walk down there sometime, maybe not now that the weather’s turned cold, in the spring. It’s not quite as quiet as the library but I think you’d like it.”

She frowns at him and he chuckles, not to be superior like so many of the guys who think she spends too much time with her nose in a book, but because he’d seen how tempted she’d been, just for a moment, to ask him to join her.

“You’re not much of a nature person are you?”

“No, but you are.”

“I am, although I don’t mind the city.”

“So if I told you I knew I was going to hate the lake what would you do?”

She’s testing him. She doesn’t know why, but he doesn’t seem to mind and she likes that.

“I’d be tempted to tell you I knew you were lying; your eyes got that sparkly excited look they get before you start lecturing me about the J-PAL white paper I haven’t read or the work the UNHCR is doing and the domestic policy implications of both, but I’d probably tell you that I think I know you well enough to assert that nothing’s ever that black and white with you, that you’d want to judge the lake on its own merits instead of on someone else’s, that you’d give it a chance because that’s something that’s important to you, and, I think,” he tacks on with a softer smile, “that’s the reason you’re still sitting here.”

Sloan had told him she realizes suddenly, surprised almost as suddenly that she isn’t as mortified as she had been, as she had thought she would be.

“I,” she stares at him, trying to decide what he’s thinking but his expression hasn’t changed. “What’s in this for you? You and Sloan aren’t that close; I didn’t know you knew each other.”

“I should have realized Kenzie was MacKenzie, but I never stopped to think you’d have another nickname. You don’t seem particularly fond of Mac.” He adds when she’s about to disagree. “As for me, I had a girl do me a favor once. I was fifteen. I hadn’t spent more than five minutes alone with a girl in years, not even her, and we’d grown up together. She was a little older; she had her license. Her daddy owned the local grocery store; he’d given her a car. We used to park out on farm roads, in the lot behind the football field. She’d had a couple of boyfriends. She knew a hell of a lot more than I did.”

“What happened to her?”

“Last I heard she was still in school out east.”

“You’re not…”

“In touch? No. She’s sweet, a good friend, but she wants to settle down, have two point five kids, a dog, and a white picket fence.”

“And you don’t?”

“I want to go to law school. Everything else is more,” he gestures toward the empty space around him.

“Nebulous.” She suggests despite his easy confidence. He would have filled in the blank eventually, found the word he didn’t feel he needed, because he hadn’t needed to explain; there were important things in life and sometimes they weren’t the people that you knew.

“You seem quite ambitious.” 

“Not enough for law school.” She laughs, taken aback that he would suggest such a thing because that seemed to be what he was suggesting, that she was aiming for something that big. 

“I only— the news. I’d like to do the news.” She admits, suddenly shy in her confession. She threw the fact in most people’s faces, dared them to disagree, but now she waffled, not in the truth of it, but in the honesty.

“That’s,” he considers for a second, “the world won’t know what hit it.”

“You’re being kind. You think it’s stupid.” She doesn’t know why she’s arguing with him, everything she can see, everything he’s said, suggests he’s being honest.

“I think it’s amazing that someone as brilliant and talented as you would be willing, would ask to do something so important and so thankless.”

“I’m not going to med school.”

“So?”

“I’m not—”

“Helping to ensure a well functioning, well educated democracy with decent values? Physical wounds aren’t the only ones that need healing.”

“Did you find that in a fortune cookie?” It’s more defensive than sharp, but he laughs anyway, bright-eyed, and shakes his head.

“Cereal box, or maybe the newspaper propped up on the cereal box. It’s hard to tell that time of the morning.”

“I thought you said you didn’t read the paper.” He had. She knows he had. She’d been aghast when he’d mentioned it during one of their sessions.

“You told me to.”

“I didn’t think you’d actually…”

“You were quite insistent.”

“No one ever listens.” She’s still staring at him, still trying to comprehend the fact that he’s being serious. She’d suggested he read the paper, keep abreast of political sentiments and he’d gone and done just that.

“Idiots.”

“You’re serious?”

“Hmm.” He hums and she allows herself a momentary grin, laughing a little when his face lights up.

“Sloan said you were,” she pauses and he waits, “she said you were nice.”

“That hasn’t been your general experience?”

“No, not with, not with a lot of people. Not with guys. I’m the repressed nerd. It’s the perfect stereotype.”

“I’d have to disagree.”

She scoffs but he’s serious. He isn’t going to push it though, she can see that. She’s seen this sort of patience from him before. He had a sneaky way of waiting to see if she was going to make his argument for him before he said anything. He’d spent almost two hours last week arguing her in and out of various policy positions without saying much of anything. “You do, do you?”

“You walked in here expecting a one night stand.”

“I walked in here and changed my mind.”

“When you saw it was me and realized impropriety could be an issue.”

“That could be an excuse.”

“I don’t think so.” He doesn’t stop to let her get a word in. “And I admire that.”

“No you don’t.” It’s a reflexive dismissal one she immediately realizes bothers him. “I’m sorry—”

“Mac…”

She stops and waits for him to finish, fiddling with hem of the sweater she’s wearing. She’d put it on thinking it made her look cute, sort of sassy, but she’s realizing, sitting here, that she should’ve worn something a little more appealing, something that made it look like she was trying at the very least.

“Don’t beat yourself up, especially not because of me.” He’s still being firm, but there’s a gentleness to him that stops the words from stinging the way that she expects them to. “If you’re interested, if you’re still interested at the end of the semester, we can talk. It’s only a couple of weeks.”

“You don’t have to,” she bites the inside of her lip, “I’m not going to get upset, hysterical, if you—”

“Have you been listening to a thing I’ve been saying?” It’s blunt, but he isn’t judging her.

“You’re a nice guy—”

“I have manners.” He cuts in but she continues undeterred.

“I don’t want you to feel—”

“Stop, MacKenzie. Stop.” He insists more firmly when it looks like she’s going to continue. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t attracted to you, haven’t been attracted to you. You’re beautiful, and god help me, smart and clever, but if you’re not interested for whatever reason, that’s the end of it. All right?”

“Oh, I,” she feels herself blushing again, “Okay. That’s new.” She tacks on and he laughs, startled.

“So I’ll see you on Tuesday, same time, same place?”

“Yeah, uh— you’re not staying?” She asks as he gets up, smoothing out the dent he’s left in the bedding.

“I’m going to go find Sloan and let her know we’re rescheduling. I can walk you back to your—”

“No it’s all right. I’ll see you on Tuesday.”

*

“Sloan.” She turns to glare at her retreating back as Will makes an equally irritated noise.

“You didn’t tell her you invited me?”

“You two are cute but it’s getting a little ridiculous. I don’t care what you do or don’t do, but everyone’s gone until late tomorrow, the fridge is stocked, the sheets are clean, and there’s everything you could ever want in the top desk drawer next to my bed.”

“Oh god.” Mac groans slumping farther into the couch. “You’re mortifying.”

“You’re not staying?” He’s lagging behind, trying to suss out implications and responses while Mac flushes pink and refuses to look at him.

“Don’s roommate is out of town this weekend. I’m definitely not staying.”

“But we are?”

“Yep.”

“Because?”

“Do I really need to spell it out for you?” Sloan smirks and he sighs.

“Generally I find that a bit—”

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” Sloan shoots back with a smugness that suggests she’d been expecting him to argue. “Have a nice chat. Make yourself a snack, just don’t make any toast. We keep setting off the building smoke alarm and the neighbors are getting really pissed at us.”

 

*

 

She looks at him wide eyed and a little anxious as Sloan’s key turns in the lock. 

“Nothing has to happen.” He reminds her but she’s already shaking her head.

“Could we just—”

Despite the fact it’s been two weeks, he hasn’t stopped thinking about this, about the night they’d spent together doing little more than kissing. He’s made a point not to think about it as they’d sat side by side in the library pouring over the material he’d needed for his final project, but even so he’s had too much time to think about it, and yet, when her lips form the word kiss, when she looks at him, a little shaken up, but even more stubborn, he can’t imagine saying no.

He nods and she shifts closer to him on the couch laying her hand tentatively on his arm and then on the outside of his thigh as he reaches to help pull her closer. 

He brushes his lips over hers, saving her the agony of having to make the first move, but then brushes his cheek against hers, giving her an out if she wants one. He feels her exhale brush past his ear and then her hand tugging on his sleeve as she shifts slowly, clumsily to sit in his lap.

“Going all in?” He teases, sliding his hands up to her hips, resting them there, heavy and grounding, while she peers at him.

“Yeah.” She decides resolutely and he floats a hand up to the back of her head, guides her mouth to his before she can say anything else, find the excuse she’s expecting from him.

Last time had ended like this, the feel of her solid and heavy, languidly draped in his lap, before he had forced himself to pull away, set her gently on the couch beside him. He’d wanted to honor his promise. He’d told her they’d wait until the semester had ended, and they had. He’d turned in the last of his work that morning and stocked up on groceries preparing to weather the impending holidays with his guitar and plenty cheap beer. Mac, Sloan had mentioned, was flying home late tomorrow.

She kisses like he remembers, a little sloppy in her stubborn eagerness, but once she calms down, once she stops trying so hard, worrying so much, he doesn’t want her to stop.

“Slower.” He pulls back enough to whisper and she grunts in frustration. He smiles at the sound and slides a kiss along her jaw even as she tugs at his hair trying to get him to let her kiss him again.

“I don’t want slower.” She shoots back, tugging harder until he reaches up to pull her hand free.

“It’s okay if you’re nervous.” He tells her softly and she scoffs, but when he meets her eye her anxiety is there, written plainly on her face

“It’s all right.” He insists and she looks away. He can tell she’s thinking about pulling back, he can feel her thighs flex, her shins push almost imperceptibly into the couch but she stays seated, forcing out a shaky breath when he reaches to set his thumb against the curve of her chin.

He knows she can’t see it, the naked vulnerability that slides through the space around her. It’d been there the night Sloan had officially introduced them and the night they’d spent like this, but she only seems to notice when she tries to bury it in apologies, when she pushes back at him defensively.

It hadn’t been there the other times he’d seen her in the days that had passed. He’d seen her almost every day this week and she’d been as self-possessed as always, but here, now, she’s anxious, because of the deadline or the uncertainty he isn’t sure, but he is sure that that’s the reason why he’s sitting here. Whatever else he might tell her, he isn’t here to do her or Sloan or anyone else a favor. He feels protective, feels drawn to the way she trembles unable to curl back in on herself the way she normally did: bent over a library table, hunched in a chair. She slouched when she stood and stooped reflexively stepping through doors or under low hung branches. Here, with him, she sat straighter, if only out of defiance.

“We’re going to go slowly.” He insists with a careful firmness, eyebrows raised slightly as she turns to look at him eyes sparking with irritation. “That’s the only thing I have to say about tonight. Everything else is up to you.”

He knows she doesn’t believe him. He’s gotten the feeling she isn’t used to people taking her seriously. She’s bright, smart and clever, but she’s young, they both are, but she already lives in a world of men, men who still pat him on the back and tell him he’s done well like he’s some sort of golden boy. 

“Scout’s honor, blood vow, whatever you want.” He assures her and he sees some of her irritation fade.

“Stop talking.”

And kiss me he knows she means, can see it in the way her eyes keep flickering to his mouth but he only nods and waits, waits until she frowns. She frowns and he still doesn’t say anything.

“Will.” She demands but he only raises his eyebrows in silent inquiry.

“Are you always this infuriating when you’re proving a point?” She asks a little amused despite the petulant tone creeping into her demands. “Say something.”

“All right.” He traces the curve of her bottom lip with his thumb and whatever feisty retort she’d planned on using dies in her mouth, her lips pressed back together in a trembling line. “I’d like to kiss you if you think you could refrain from tearing my hair out in your impatience.”

“I,” she looks down at the hand on her thigh with wide eyes, obviously concerned she was going to find a fistfull of hair in her grasp. “I’m sorry. I didn’t—”

“It’s ok, Mac. Mac,” he says again, a hand on the side of her face, drawing her gaze back up to his. “It’s all right. We’ll slow down a bit, give you time to think. It won’t happen again.”

“I don’t want to think.” The admission is a bit more explosive than he’d expected, but that doesn’t seem to bother her. “All I’ve been doing is thinking, all week. Do you know how much you breathe?”

“Not any more than you do.” He teases and he sees that he’s startled her, surprised her enough that she abandoned whatever aggravated rant she’d been planning about the impossible situation they’d put themselves in.

“Is it always like that?” It’s the first time she’d asked him something that seemed to matter to her, so he’s careful to think before he answers. She was plainly curious, if a bit hesitant now that he was taking the time to frame his answer.

“With someone you’re interested in?” He tucks her hair behind her ear and she nods. “It’s something of the sort. It’s not always— I promised you no strings, but no it’s not normally like this, not for me, not so,” he pauses to consider, but he’d set himself up for this the moment he’d asked her to wait until the end of the semester, to wait until she wouldn’t have to see him again if she didn’t want to. “Intense. Are you suggesting you might be attracted to a giant oaf?”

“I didn’t mean that.” She sounds a bit defensive but she smiles when he does, relaxing a little as he slips his hands down the sides of her arms.

“It’s all right.” He says again, repeating the gesture, and then sliding one hand around to the back of her neck as she leans forward to kiss him.

*

She has her hand fisted in his shirt when they come up for air long enough for him to realize they’d been at this for awhile. He doesn’t want to ruin the mood but he’s going to need to use the bathroom and find a snack if she’s expecting him to last half the night like this.

“Mac,” he mutters, tipping his head back when she tries to kiss him again, already impatient with the interruption. “I need a pit stop and a refuel.”

“What?”

For a moment he thinks she might have misheard him, as preoccupied as she’d been with the way she’d so carefully settled herself into his lap, but then he remembers she wasn’t going to understand a thing he said unless he stuck to soccer references.

“Bathroom and a snack.” He clarifies and she nods thoughtfully.

“I should,” she agrees although it sounds more like she’d gotten the word order confused and had meant it as a question.

“I’ll see what I can find in the kitchen.” He offers as she gets to her feet but she shakes her head gesturing toward the opposite end of the suite toward the bathroom.

“I’ll look.”

She hasn’t managed to find much by the time he joins her in the kitchen, but she’s halfway through a slice of pizza and doesn’t seem to mind that it’s both ice cold and from the dining hall so he grabs his own slice and continues his stroll around the apartment, stopping at the end of the hall where Sloan’s room is. She may have to share the suite with roommates, but she had the luxury of her own space, something he’d only been afforded off-campus due to his irregular and occasionally irradatic schedule.

He finishes the last of his pizza and bumps the door to Sloan’s room open the rest of the way with his hip, slipping inside to switch on the desk lamp and take a look around. This isn’t his first time in Sloan’s room but it is his first time here alone and it feels oddly empty, barren, without her quietly humming energy.

All the other times he’d seen them the sheets and bedding had been a mix of white and pale grey, to match the only real decoration in the space: the shelves and the pots of fake plants that hung on the wall opposite the bed. Tonight, however, the bed is covered in a mix of colors, ecru, a pale yellow, splashes of navy, and he wonders who’s room she’d raided to procure such a selection. Don certainly didn’t own the shockingly pink pillowcases he reveals upon further investigation of the bed.

Whoever owned them, borrowing them was clearly Sloan’s idea of a joke. The rest of the room, books excluded, was primly monotone and deliberately tidy, the drawer beside her bed as equally well curated, and just as organized, containing a careful catalog of whatever they might need. Sloan, as she’d asserted, was taking this very seriously.

“What’s funny?” Mac interrupts his laugh with a curiosity that doesn’t quite hide the way she’s fidgeting, the edge of the door shuttled between her hands as she bats it back and forth, the hinges protesting faintly.

“We can go back to the living room.” He stands and starts to slide the drawer shut, but she steps forward and he stops.

“What’s so funny?”

“Sloan’s collection,” he sighs and considers for a moment before shaking his head in amusement. “I’m not sure I needed to know what Don’s favorite brand is.”

“Condoms?” Mac leans past him to peer into the drawer and he steps aside, pulling it open so she can get a better look.

“She said she liked surprising, them, people.” Mac shrugs, clarifying, clearly careful in her choice of pronouns. “Is that a lot?”

“She’ll be busy for awhile.”

Mac frowns and moves closer, fingers flitting over the items in the drawer.

“I took Human Anatomy and Physiology for my science req last year.” She offers idly and he chuckles, not entirely surprised she’d bothered with the bureaucratic hoops it would’ve taken to bypass the mandatory prerequisites.

“Plain old anatomy wasn’t enough?”

“It didn’t fit in my schedule.” She glances at him momentarily then turns her attention back to the drawer, nail tapping on top of a bottle of lube.

She had questions, but not misgivings, that’s what the assertion had been about. She understood the basic underpinnings, she wasn’t totally clueless, but, “you have some logistical questions.”

“I,” she sets her lips back into a thin line, deliberately not looking at him, as if that was going to stop him from noticing the pink flush that’s crept across her cheeks. “I know what’s supposed to happen.”

“But you didn’t want to ask Sloan for specifics.”

“God, no.” Mac looks horrified at the thought. “Look at what she did when—” She stops herself. “I never would’ve agreed. She would’ve locked me in a room full of porn. I would have died.”

“Porn really isn’t the best place.” He trails off when she sighs an almost inaudible, “better than biology textbooks.”

“Hey,” he lays his hand on her arm lightly. “There’s really only two things you need to know: we’re going slow and you’re in charge.”

“What are the other things?” He feels his forehead wrinkle and she clarifies. “You said ‘really only two’, that generally means—”

“No one’s first time is what they’d expected. Sex isn’t always great the first time, or the second.” He amends honestly. “Communicate, even if it’s a little loud or bossy. If some douche tries to tell you it isn’t about you; he’s a douche and doesn’t deserve you. No means no.”

“What does ‘shut up and kiss me’ mean?” She poses the question glancing at him out of the corner of her eye, but she turns toward him as he replies.

“Please distract me from the crippling anxiety I have at the thought that the best thing I’ll ever do in my life will be the touchdown I scored in—”

He stops talking when her lips meet his and he takes the half step back to the bed where he sits, winding his arms around her waist.

*

“If you keep that up you’re going to stop my—”

“Time,” she cuts in as he sags back against the wall behind him, his head thunking dully as he tries to calm his beating heart.

“Close enough.” He swallows and then smiles lazily as she squirms until her head’s tipped, resting against his shoulder.

He’s had his hand wedged between the wall and the small of her back but it slides away as she moves and she whines in automatic protest, sighing when he replaces it a moment later.

“Would it be all right if I slipped my hand up the back of your shirt?”

“Not down the front of it?” She asks and he turns his head to frown at her.

“I’m not some—”

“We’ve been making out for—”

“MacKenzie McHale,” he teases with mock afront, “such casual use of language—”

“It’s so much nicer than kissing.” She asserts, looking satisfied at the lack of a rebuttal on his part. “Is it all right if I lose the shirt?”

“Why would I—”

“You have to lose yours too.” It’s not a demand but the look in her eye has a distinctly mischievous edge.

“All right then. I’ll see you that sass and raise you a shirt.”

“I don’t play poker.” She complains, her frown disappearing momentarly as he yanks his shirt over his head and discards it on the floor.

“Your wish is my command.” He offers instead and she smiles softly, not at his words but at the way his skin shivers under her touch, her fingers skating from the hollow of his throat down to his abs in slow deliberate strokes.

“Like what you see?” He teases and she looks up at him with her bottom lip drawn in, thoughtful as he runs the side of his index finger down the slope of her nose.

“That feels good?”

“Yeah.” He smiles, wondering if this is the first time she’s realized that he’s enjoying himself. She’d been nervous and then preoccupied before so it’s not as if he blames her, but it still surprises him that despite what he assumed was an irritating number of manboys expressing their interest in her she hadn’t stopped to consider that someone, that he, might honestly be interested in her.

“Can I show you?”

“Yeah.” She swallows, pulling her hand back to yank at her blouse, momentarily fumbling as the oddly cheery fabric tangles in her hair. “That wasn’t,” she starts to say and then sighs as he runs his hands up her back, fingers splayed. “Oh.”

He lets his eyes slip shut, concentrating on the feeling of her skin under his fingertips, listening to the tiny hitches in her breath as he skirts a particularly sensitive spot along her ribs. Her fingers tap his shoulder then slide down his arm. He doubts she’s paying much attention to what she’s doing anymore, her head coming back to rest against his shoulder.

“This is my favorite part.” 

“The naked part?” The words sound a little airy, breathless, but she looks no less composed than she had when he opens his eyes to smile at her.

“This is not the naked part.”

“It’s going to be.”

He mutters something he knows she can’t make out and watches her forehead wrinkle. “That wasn’t English.”

“That was very bad Latin.”

“I knew I should’ve gone pre-med.” She smiles a little, squirming slightly when he taps his fingers against her ribs.

“Pre-med wouldn’t have helped. It was on a cereal box.”

“They don’t put Latin on cereal boxes.”

“They did on this one.”

“They did not.” She insists and then laughs because she realizes that he’s teasing. “Was it in the paper? Are you trying to be funny?”

He scoffs, faking hurt, then offers her half a smile until her grin grows and he matches it, fingers dropping to skate across the top of her jeans.

The first time she gasps she looks surprised, back arching a little. The second time she presses her lips together and the sound comes out as a whimper, needy but a little shy, her face flushing as she draws her bottom lip in between her teeth self-consciously.

“That’s a good sound.” He tells her as he tsks gently and pulls her lip free, canting his head to the side to meet her eye as her gaze drops. “I like it.”

“You do?”

She sounds far from convinced but he nods and hums, kissing her bare shoulder and passing his finger back over the spot above her hip so she shivers. “Very much.”

“OK.” She considers, turning toward him again, fingers raking through his hair. “Can you make me make it again?”

“Oh I don’t know.” He lets his voice drop, rasp a bit in a way that keeps her eyes fixed on his, her lips parting with a silent gasp of confirmation. “I think that can be arranged.”

*

Sprawled on the bed her hair’s a proper mess, tousled and frizzy, spread out around her head, draped over the arm he has planted beside her to stop himself from squashing her as he leans in for another kiss. They’re not exactly naked, but they’re making progress. She’s lost her pants, but he’s left his on not wanting to tempt either one of them into doing something stupid. 

She’s been trying, between the quiet gasps she keeps making, the ones he finds he really likes, to tell him something about Sloan but he’s not particularly interested in hearing whatever it is. He knows it’s the easiest way for her to distract herself now that she can’t always reach his mouth to kiss herself into oblivion, but he likes his new vantage point, the one he slides back to. He likes the way he can plant open mouthed kisses along the plane of her stomach and make her shiver, the excuse it gives him to lay a hand on her thigh or slide his hands up to cup her breasts while she presses her head back into a pillow with a whimper.

“Can you take your bra off?” He asks her nipping the inside of her knee as he coaxes her leg up, her foot planted beside his thigh.

“Sloan said,” she tries again as he blows against the spot he’d just nipped and she stops, lost in the way her body shifts against the bed.

“Your bra.” He asks again, sliding up to kiss her again and she nods, her eyes closed as she lets out a long breath before looking up at him. “I know Sloan tells a good story but I need you here with me so you can tell me what feels good.”

“It all,” she swallows, her tongue flicking out to moisten her bottom lip. “It all feels good. So good.”

“That’s good.” He smiles slow and wide, a little cocky because he likes the way it makes her eyes shine. He’s realized she takes it as a challenge, that bit of self-assurance that slips out of him unpracticed. She takes it as a challenge and whatever Sloan had or hadn’t said doesn’t matter anymore.

She twists her arm around behind her then drops it over her head, her bra slipping to the floor with the quiet hiss of satin.

He kisses her again as he slides his hands up, skin against skin and discovers another sound he likes, the tiny mewling noises she makes when he pulls his hand away. The tiny sounds that grow into a whimper when he replaces his hands with his mouth before he slips away again to press his hand into her thigh, kiss the top of her knee.

He scoots down lower on the bed, watching the way her cheeks grow pinker the longer he takes. There’s a part of him that wishes she could see herself, how beautiful she looked, but he knows saying anything like that would only make her more self-conscious and right now that’s the last thing he wants. Right now he wants to hear that needy throaty sound, the one he’s learning means he’d better not stop, he’d better not fucking stop no matter how much she insisted on trying to overthink everything, because she wanted this, she wanted him. Damn he wanted to hear that sound, as dangerous as it was.

“I have a question.” He’s stretched out on his stomach, knees bent with his feet in the air, swinging just enough that he can see her eyes tracking the motion. “I have a question about this.”

He draws a swirl on her thigh and then another, higher, across the thin fabric of her underwear onto her other thigh, and he sees her freeze, her exhale caught in her throat. He does it again more deliberately this time and she scoots down the bed a bit, moving closer until he reaches up to tug her down.

“Can I have these?” He plucks at the elastic to her underwear and she reaches down, trying to help him before abandoning the pretense and following his instructions so he can drop them off the side of the bed, hoping he’s amining somewhere near the rest of her clothes.

“Mmm,” he hums against her thigh smiling, sliding his mouth higher until she squeaks, evidently surprised as her back arches, her hand fumbling for his head before she grabs a fistfull of the comforter.

“That’s good.” He pulls away just enough to chuckle, before starting again, his hand sliding up the side of her leg as he works.

He’s not intending to tease her so it doesn’t surprise him how quickly she comes apart but it does surprise him how reluctant she is to let go of the feeling, her eyes slowly fluttering open as she props herself up on an elbow seeking him out.

“My turn— Your turn.” She stumbles a bit before sharply shaking her head. “Can I?”

“I don’t think I’d survive that.” He tells her honestly and she smiles at him managing to look smug despite the blissful look on her face.

“You seem to think I’m hell bent on killing you.”

“You have no idea.” He chuckles and shakes his head at the way she’s starting to pout. “I’m not complaining. It’s only— I’m not done with you yet.”

She whimpers, all need and wanting as he pulls away reluctantly to fumble through the drawer beside the bed. He grabs a bottle of lube and a condom and lets out a shaky breath. He’s amped up, anticipating, but more than that he wants this, her, wants to see that blissful look on her face again.

He’s careful, gentle, but he doesn’t want to draw things out. She’s had her eyes pressed shut since he’d slid the drawer shut again. He almost wants to tease her for her false bravado, the way he knows she’ll ask him if he’s slacking on the job if he asks if she’s ready, but he ignores the temptation, thrusting slowly despite the way she tenses momentarily. 

“OK?” He asks pausing.

“That’s it?” She sounds more relieved than amused but she laughs a little when he shrugs a shoulder, one hand braced beside her on the mattress as he leans forward to kiss her, chuckling to himself when her nose crinkles.

“Your mouth tasted better when it tasted like pizza.” She informs him. “Sloan doesn’t keep breath mints in that drawer of goodies does she?”

“Mac.”

“I’m asking for a friend.” She smirks a bit and then goes quiet, her lips parting slightly as he draws back to thrust again experimentally.

“Good?”

“Weird.” She swallows. “Weird good. Yes.”

“Oh.” He supplies for her and she nods, swallowing again, head shifting against the pillow.

“God how do you?”

“Fuck, I could ask you the same thing.” He manages another teasing smile before he feels his self-control start to fray around the edges. “This may not be,” he trails off.

“Will.” She pouts a little, teasing and he presses his eyes shut, blocks it out because it makes it hard to concentrate, god, it makes it hard to— 

“It’s OK.” He can still hear the pout fade from her smile, turn gentle. “Go ahead.”

He does, carefully, with as much self-control as he can until he slumps satisfied onto the bed beside her a moment later.

“Was that,” he asks when he’s recovered a little and he hears her giggle, a quiet bubbling of laughter that more than dispels any doubts he might have had.

“Sloan says guys only really get one go at it and they take forever to re—”

“Please tell me you’re not asking—”

“Not right away.” She laughs. “You look a little—”

“Satisfied. Very much so.” He fills in for her before reaching blindly, clumsily drawing her closer until he can feel her shift to press against his side. “I need a minute. Many minutes.”

“A nap.”

“Maybe,” he yawns. “Rip Van Winkle would be proud.”

“That doesn’t make—”

“I know, just,” he sighs and closes his eyes. “Two minutes.”


End file.
